Cooking with Bruce: Red kidney bean daal

I found this one in an Aussie vege food magazine, but I've edited things a bit. Mainly as I see no reason at all to buy raw lentils and kidney beans, and cook the bastards for days on end to make them (slightly) softer. So buy them precooked. It just makes sense.

One thing that kinda pisses me off about being [mostly] vegetarian is the expectation that you love lentils. In general, I hate lentils. They're boring, generally poorly cooked, and have only been interesting here (note the Rush t-shirt!):


Red Kidney bean daal
packet/tin red kidney beans 250-300gm (ish)
packet/tin lentils 250-300gm (ish)
1T chilli flakes
1T coriander powder
thumb size grated fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 stick of cinnamon
10 cloves
1t cardamon
250gm [ish] of chopped tomato
50-60gm unsalted butter
75ml cream

Drain and rinse beans, add chilli, coriander, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cloves, cardamon and tomato and slow cook over a low heat for an hour (I guess...). If it gets dry, add water. stir occasionally. Add cream and butter and cook for 10-15mins stirring occasionally, remove the cinnamon stick. Serve over rice, naan, or other stuff.

btw: for the girls-blouses out there, I'd suggest pulling the chilli down (this probably applies to most of England too, given what I've had described as 'hot', pah!).

Love, B